Billionaire Benefit Bill

Spectator

The United States Senate has passed the so-called Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) and sent it back to the House as this is being written. Some version of this travesty may already be law by the time you read this, but it is crystal clear it isn’t going to help most of us.

The bill, at a minimum, makes corporate tax breaks the last Trump Administration passed permanent and increases them, along with tax breaks for some individuals. Not surprisingly, the billionaire and multi-millionaire classes will fare considerably better than regular working folks.

So, big pharma, big oil/gas, big tech, big chemicals, the big dogs in industry will get the big tax breaks. Those who mine it, drill it, or chop it down will do especially well. The argument, as always, is that they will use the extra money to hire more people, to undertake innovative research, to develop/release new products and to reward their employees.

But we already saw such a tax break, and we know the companies did almost none of what we just mentioned. Instead, they paid down debt, rewarded executives with huge bonuses, and, mostly, bought back as much of their company’s stock as possible, reducing the total shares in public, which increased the value of those shares.

The richest individuals will also receive the biggest tax breaks, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Donald Trump—the who’s who of MAGA billionaires—will realize big breaks. Alas, those making around $50,000 annually might see a tax break of $300 or less.

The “conservatives” now in charge, and their puppet masters pulling the Project 2025 strings, are adamant about wanting to reduce the annual deficits and the overall national debt. But the BBB will reduce federal income considerably, adding to both the deficit and the debt.

No problem. Supporters in Congress have conjured up a nifty bit of reverse Robin Hoodism, taking from the poor and giving it to both rich individuals and corporations. They will find, they claim, Medicaid waste and fraud totaling nearly $1 trillion over the next decade. They are assuming—incorrectly, if we are to believe prior attempts at rooting out Medicaid fraud—a system awash with lazy bums and scammers.

Medicaid is a joint system of the federal and state governments providing healthcare coverage to lower income adults, children, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and some senior citizens. Every state is allowed to establish its own rules and regulations for eligibility and use of Medicaid services.

According to the Pew Research Center, as of January 2025, 71.4 million Americans qualified for and utilized Medicaid and another 7.1 million children utilized the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Here in Michigan, the Michigan Health and Hospital Association (MHA) says we have 2.66 million of our residents enrolled in Medicaid and another million children in CHIP, about 27 percent of our population.

The BBB adds stronger work requirements and a blizzard of red tape. Never mind that there are already work requirements in every state. KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation) reports that nationally 64 percent of Medicaid recipients already work (it’s 60 percent here in Michigan) and many of the rest have legitimate reasons they are not working but still qualify—they are over 65 with limited income, they are disabled, or they are a caretaker for a disabled family member, among other reasons.

The CBO says the Senate version of the BBB will reduce Medicaid spending by $930 billion over the next decade. No investigation by any organization, government or private, has ever uncovered that much fraud or waste. The only way to achieve those kinds of savings is to find a way to boot people out of the program.

The CBO says 10.3 million Americans will lose their Medicaid coverage by 2034, most because of a new, burdensome bureaucracy. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says the number will be somewhere between 9.7 million and 14.4 million losing their coverage. Whatever the number, some now legitimately covered will lose that coverage.

Those folks instead will be relegated to emergency care only, forgoing regular medical care for trips to the emergency room or urgent care. Preventative care also goes by the wayside, meaning crisis intervention will be their only medical care, a wildly more expensive option with significantly worse outcomes.

Our elected officials who cower in fear every time the current president clears his throat simply do not care. When confronted with the staggering numbers who will be at risk when they lose Medicaid coverage, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said, “We all are going to die.” And Mitch McConnell, the retiring senator for Kentucky said, “...they’ll get over it” when coal miners in his state complained about rural hospitals closing.

Take from the poor, give to the rich. We all die. Get over it.

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